Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching. 51 
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF 
ELEMENTARY BOTANICAL TEACHING. 
To the Editor of the New Phytologist. 
ECOLOGY AS A SUBJECT FOR TEACHING. 
Dear Sir, 
Being a physicist with only an amateur’s interest in botany^ 
and having never had the fortune, good or bad, of experiencing 
elementary botanical teaching, I must commence by apologising 
for my intrusion into a purely botanical discussion. With much 
that has been said on this subject I am in hearty agreement, but 
I view with alarm the suggestion that ecology, in its present state, 
should form part of elementary courses. The objects of teaching 
are firstly, to train the student to think, and secondly, to impart 
information. Opinions differ as to which of these is the more 
important; both are unpleasant processes, the former being the 
more so from the teacher’s point of view. Now on both grounds 
ecology seems to me to be in an unsuitable state for teaching 
purposes. In most subjects knowledge comes by the gradual 
accumulation of research ; after a suitable delay it is incorporated 
into text-books and courses of lectures. By this time it has been 
adequately criticised and the teacher has an opportunity of giving 
an account both of the present position of his subject and of the 
steps that have led to it, thus achieving both objects. Ecology is 
in the unfortunate position of a subject where the text-books are 
considerably in advance of research. Plants have been classified 
in detail according to their water relations and the soluble and 
insoluble constituents of their soils ; they have been reclassified 
according to morphological characters believed to be of ecological 
importance ; and when the two classifications have not at first 
coincided the differences have been removed by the invention of 
many new words. Yet the specific instances where the cause of 
the relation between two plant-communities has been conclusively 
traced are very few ; they certainly do not reach three figures, and 
barely two. The remainder of ecology at present is description, 
and speculation unsupported by experimental evidence. Now in 
the first place what training in connected thought can an elementary 
student gain from such a subject ? All the steps of all the 
reasoning that has yet led to discoveries in it could be given in a 
